WTF?!? Is this suppose to happen?

mijustin

mijustin

Member
So I had a guy pull up behind me... and he must have boogied to catch up, to tell me that my plate was loose. Pulled off the hwy to find the metal torn off the bracket at the bolt thread. I can't imagine it to be metal fatigue, as the plate is barely a year old and is secured with an actual plate hanger... not like a DIY, I drilled two new holes, but I'm wondering if this has ever happened to anyone else?

j6Np3HS.jpg
 
It is interesting that the rip did not even occur that close to the thinnest part of the license plate, which would have been near the bolt hole, but to the left of this. I've seen improperly mounted license plates crack at the bolt hole, the crack goes through the bolt hole, and exits somewhere else, resulting in a corner of the plate breaking off. Maybe something else caught the corner of the plate and ripped it off?
 
FLSTC said:
Theory: the plate hit your tire while underway, bottom edge was pushed forward.
Click to expand...


Wouldn't that type of impact have damaged the bottom of the plate as well? Looks ok to me.
I'm going with just a fluke defective plate. I mean, look at how all the numbers and letters have faded away. ?
 
My previous street plate I had for a long time (and it's still in my garage). Then the MTO went cheap on their plates. I lost one off of my supermoto in nothing more than tall grass. I had a crack on my new street plate that would have resulted in the same situation that you have but I replaced it before it got there. When I replaced that plate I compared it to my original and there was an obvious difference in weight and thickness.

Just look at all the plates on cars where the colour is peeling off the metal but 6 digit plates from a decade or more ago are fine.
 
I've had similar things happen on my dual sport dirt bikes, but normally after some serious jumps or subframe breakage.
 
Seen it happen twice to the same guy in the last two years. They'll never change. Easier to make money when you have to keep getting new plates.
 
Could be from too much flexing, like a pop can fractures after so many bend cycles.

There's a 5 year warranty on peeling defective plates, just bring the old ones in to the MTO. Reason I heard they don't last as long is that they went to a more environmentally friendly paint process. I was 2 months passed and I had to pay.
 
didn't know there was a warranty. They want me to replace it they can just give me a new one. Funny the front is mint, but the back is almost toast.
 
Only had that happen once to a plate on my '69 BSA, but that bike vibrated so much I was surprised more things did not fall off from metal fatigue. Ended up using a steel backing plate to mount the licence plate to and that solved the problem.
 
Happened to one of mine last year (plate was about 4yrs old). Seemed odd to me as well but I guess they're just not as strong as they used to be. Rear car plate has come its backing as well and it's been under a cover the whole life.
 
mijustin said:
So I had a guy pull up behind me... and he must have boogied to catch up, to tell me that my plate was loose. Pulled off the hwy to find the metal torn off the bracket at the bolt thread. I can't imagine it to be metal fatigue, as the plate is barely a year old and is secured with an actual plate hanger... not like a DIY, I drilled two new holes, but I'm wondering if this has ever happened to anyone else?

j6Np3HS.jpg
Click to expand...

Mine is almost the same.it was from people bending my plate back and forth till finally the corner snapped off.
 
FLSTC said:
Theory: the plate hit your tire while underway, bottom edge was pushed forward.
Click to expand...

Can't see it cause I rubbed out the plate # but this is a true story when I had it mounted lower.. Didn't even think about it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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